An Open Letter to Dignity

Brooke E. Wayne: A Rom-Com Writer’s Ramblings

…You ripe, ol’ bastard, creeping in on my day like this when I’d just like to let any chaos drift by me in a hurried mess, sweeping with it the tornado-esque madness of youth. I have too much to do to hold myself accountable to you with every passing moment of my day. I know I didn’t deserve to be called a bitch under his breath even if he thought my expectations of his writing quality were too high because of you. It’s all your fault. You seeded in me a sense of self-respect as a teacher to want a student’s personal best when he or she turns in work to me. It’s the end of April, after all, he’s lucky I told him he had to revise it instead of mark it an F and carry on. But damn you for putting me in that awkward position to decide if I should honor you in my profession and send him up on a referral, or just let him squirm with guilt and sit there, staring me down, shredding his half-ass work into tiny pieces of paper while I deliberately ignored him. Okay, so maybe that might have made me an even bigger bitch, but, sorry dignity, you lost that battle to my stubbornness. At least he threw the confetti that he had made away, and, wouldn’t you know, he even waited and held the door open for me when class was over. He didn’t say a word when I thanked him as I walked by. He didn’t have to.

PS. After lunch, he came by and told me he was going to write another draft, but I already knew that he would.

Sincerely,

Mrs. ….

Writing101: Day Fourteen: To Whom It May Concern (Challenge: Write a letter inspired by a word on pg. 29 of the nearest book–DIGNITY)